A Couple of Dolls

Kansas recently had it's 150th birthday, and to celebrate Rowan's 1st grade class got to dress up as pioneers or cowboys - Rowan chose to dress like Laura Ingalls. We borrowed a bonnet and doll from a friend, and MAN she looked the part! She fell in love with the pioneer fabric doll, and from that day has been designing and planning a similar doll of her own.

She pulled out her sewing kit and muslin and has been leaving it all over the house for weeks whilst she cooks up her plan. She finished her design yesterday morning, and is ready to dig in.

We made a Hobby Lobby run yesterday for a different project, and while we were there I told her I had fabric remnants at home we could use to design her doll's dress and bonnet. She asked what we would use for the doll's body, and I said I assumed we'd use the muslin from her sewing basket. She got very serious, and with her most adult voice said, "Actually, Mommy, I had envisioned her having dark brown skin."  Okey dokey! Luckily the cotton broadcloth was on sale, and I let her pick out the brown she wanted.Very happy camper.


This morning we pulled out the remnants and she chose the yarn (oh dear, it's BRIGHT orange) for the hair, and pulled two blue buttons for eyes. With Brad knee-deep in taxes and Brynn entertained by her "Signing Time" video, Rowan and I spread out on the kitchen table and got to work.

First we used cardboard to sketch a doll shape, remembering to leave extra for the seaming. I traced half the doll on paper, cut it out, then flipped it over to trace the perfectly symmetrical other half. We cut out the doll pattern, held it over the brown fabric and cut that baby out. (Rowan did about half the cutting, but my big fabric scissors hurt her hand.) She was SO happy with the cut fabric she asked if she could hug it for a minute before we went on.  Awwww!

Next she sewed on the button eyes.  After a few finger pricks I helped out, but she did great on her own!

She designed the mouth and cheeks out of felt, which I mostly sewed on for her, but the few little pink stitches she did were so stinkin' cute!

This evening while I was cleaning up the counter before dinner, Rowan put on the eyelashes, so baby "Grace" was ready to get sewed up. This is where I needed my mommy. We pulled out the sewing machine, pinned Grace's back to her front, and I attempted to sew evenly along her edges. Well...Rowan loves her and that's what counts. Her head is quite lumpy and lopsided LOL! And I'm pretty sure her arms are different lengths. Maybe we can hide that with the orange hair and a long-sleeved dress??

Rowan loved stuffing her with fiberfil, and is working on hand-sewing her bottom seam as I write. She is thrilled she will be able to take Grace to bed tonight, despite the fact that she is bald and naked. Are they a couple of dolls or what!

Crafters Unite

I think it's important for crafters to stick together.  Spell check tells me that "crafters" isn't a word, but that's just ridiculous!  I could say artists instead, but I don't know - can I count myself as an artist?  Why not.  If someone asks me what I "do" I can tell them I'm a fiber artist.  HA!


The same day I picked up my writing hat and started this blog, I visited a local jewelry artist show with my friend, Chris, at the Lenexa Community Center.  It was so much fun to look around at all the different styles and all the creativity.  And I did buy something for myself, which I thought was fitting - new earrings made out of vintage typewriter keys!  Totally love them.  The artist who made them has created a company called Junque Drawer Studio, and I encourage you to check them out at www.junquedrawerstudio.com.  They make all kinds of things out of old game pieces, typewriter keys, bottle caps, and other crazy junk drawer stuff.  All the earrings were artfully displayed on vintage playing cards and other random cards, which really made for a cool display.  

I've worn the earrings several times this week, and have added some things from the website to my birthday wish list.  For those who live in the area, Junque Drawer Studio jewelry can be found at:
 Trendz: 151st and Nall
 Milk Boutique: 10524 S. Ridgeview, Olathe
 Olathe Glass & Home Decor: 510 East Sante Fe, Olathe


They are also opening their own boutique in May at 12070 S. Ridgeview in Olathe.  If I find out when the grand opening is, I'll post it.


That's it for now, true believers!  (Is that from the old Spiderman cartoon?  Can't remember.)  Go forth...and make art!

All Things BFF

With Valentine's Day only 4 days away, today has been deemed "serious Valentine craftiness day." (Btw, I did finish my laundry first thing this morning in the spirit of 'git 'er done!) Rowan's first task was to decorate a box for school. Luckily the Kleenex box in the powder room was almost empty, so we stole it. (Is it gross that I left the small stack of leftover Kleenex sitting on the back of the toilet?  I'll ponder on that.) I asked if Rowan wanted the box covered in plain paper or wrapping paper, and she chose our new $1 bin Target paper, which I deftly affixed to the box, leaving the slot open on the top. We got out stickers and some beaded fringe from past projects and went to town!

The next task was to finish her classmate's valentines. She had about half of them done earlier this week and they turned out darling! It was hard for me to not hover at first, offering to cut hearts out or smooth rough edges (of which there are plenty) and although I reminded her over and over that she needed to make the valentines big enough for me to hot glue the candy to, they kept getting smaller and smaller. Every single valentine has a handwritten "BFF" in the middle. At one point she turned to me and said she wasn't sure she wanted to put BFF on a particular child's valentine. I told her she didn't have to. "Too late," she said. "I already did it in pen."

She is so proud to have them done.  Big check off the 7-year old to-do list!


Now it's nap time, and my project this afternoon is to catch up on our family photo album. I've done the hard part - choosing which photos will be included - and have them printed and in hand. Now my task is to sift through my mom's Shutterfly site to make sure I didn't miss anything major. She often takes pictures at times when I forget to - thanks for being my back-up photographer, Mom! You are my BFF!!!!

Git 'er done

Do you ever have one of those days when just a leeetle bit of redneck sneaks out?  Yep, git 'er done. I woke to a 4 degree morning feeling quite productive. After getting Rowan to school (git 'er gone), I tackled the kitchen mess, started laundry (even thought the piles had not even cascaded over the sides of the hampers yet!), and actually put away most of the random, "deal with it later" piles that seemed to be in every room. And I made a pasta salad for the teacher dinner. Oh, and I showered too. (Git 'er warshed!) I told myself that if I could really git 'er done today, then I could do something fun during nap time. Well, after I caught up on Quicken finances and harassed my Daisy parents with a jillion email reminders about this and that. 2 o'clock came and found me with receipts entered, dishwasher humming, and emails sent. Time for fun!


I wrapped 3 birthday gifts yesterday (git 'er wrapped! Oh fine, I'll stop doing that.) Rowan was invited to 3 parties in the span of a week, and I am seriously thankful for my closet gift stash! The gifts are stacked in the dining room, but our "tag and card" drawer came up seriously lacking. We've got some horsey ones that are pretty baby-ish looking, and I felt like I wanted something a bit more girly. I hate to spend money on birthday cards that get looked at for 5 seconds (if even) and then trashed, so *light bulb* (do you hear the Hallelujah chorus in the background?), I can make gift tag cards!


I grabbed my stash of scrap paper bits, a few sheets of white card stock and my cutting tools. GO!

First I cut the cardstock into 3 strips, almost 3" each. I cut each strip into 2, which gives me 6 cards per page. I folded them over, then started digging through paper. I cut my first pretty paper square to be slightly smaller than the white card, then I tried to figure out how to fancy it up. Light bulb, people! If I use skinny scraps, I can cross them over the square like ribbon on a package.  (Hal-le-lu....jah!)

At first I was finding the obvious matchy papers, but then I decided to push the boundaries a little and try some different color combos. I had so much fun making the first 12, that I decided to do another 6! As I played with paper, it really started to sink in how difficult it must be for quilters to choose the fabrics for their pieces. To get that just right balance of "go together" and "contrast" it takes quite a bit of hemming and hawing. (Don't ask me what "hawing" really means either.)


So I hemmed and hawed in my clean kitchen, with bits of paper flying this way and that and constructed my oh so cutie gift tags. And yes, another light bulb! My Girl Scouts could totally do this.  File that way for the future...

It's Wednesday afternoon, and we've got an hour of chaos between school pick-up and Rowan's ballet class. Wednesday means Brynn has to be in the car for a good chunk of her crankiest time of day, I have to spend an hour in the ballet lobby pulling her away from all the no-no's, nobody eats until late, and mommy usually caves and gets us McDonalds. Which is totally justified tonight (isn't it always?) because Brad is out of town until late and I'm single parenting today!  And dude.  I totally forgot about the laundry I started...
Tomorrow, I'll git 'er done.

Stupid Mexico

So, apparently my sister thinks I can be funny and has challenged me to add more "yuk yuk" factor to my blog. Challenge accepted, woman! Having said that...have you ever tried to draw Mexico?  Let me backtrack...

Girl Scouts celebrates "World Thinking Day" in February and I came up with the brainiac idea to do an activity with my scouts on Monday that gets them thinking about the world in terms of their own heritage. "I'll just create a world map on poster board," I say to myself.  "Then I'll have the girls put stickers on a couple of countries where they have ancestors." My Daisy parents came through with all the info I needed, and we've got a lot of countries represented by my 17 girls. But now to create the map.

I imported a colorful map off the Internet into PowerPoint and then drew a grid over it to divide it into easier "drawing" sections. Then I took a large piece of poster board, left room for the title (which meant no Antarctica, but oh well), and drew a corresponding grid on that. Now comes the freehand drawing bit. I started with Australia - no worries, mate!  Then I took one look at Indonesia and the Philippines and knew I was in WAY over my head. Yeah, I pretty much threw some blobs in there, added some dots to fancy it up, and called it done. I worked my way up into Russia and across to Norway then decided Europe looked way hard, so backtracked down India way and then into Africa first. Of course 95% of the countries represented by my scouts' ancestors are in Europe, so I spent a lot of time doing it justice once I'd worked back up to it. The British Isles had to be penciled in several times, but not too shabby in the end.

Then came the Americas. South America, easy. Canada - good grief! Who put all those blotchy island looking thingies floating up there? I took some liberties. The U.S. took me several tries - dude, even with the grid it's harder than it looks to draw, and I didn't want our own country to look like crap! Finally, got it as close as I was going to get it, and was down to Central America. (And I will admit, in this journey, that I was amazed how much of my geography had totally gotten lost since junior high. I had many, many moments of "whoa, that's where Thailand is?") But I digress. Central America. Yeah, I penciled and erased and penciled and finessed and I'll be darned if that stupid Mexico just would not cooperate! Being so close to home, and having a couple girls that will put stickers there, I wanted to get it right. But it just would not be nice and hold still so that I could draw it right! At this point I am expecting Brad home any minute, and dinner is not even remotely planned. I could have walked away, but Mexico kept taunting me to try again. :P

And of course I tell myself, "The girls won't care!  This activity will only take 10 minutes for them to do anyway. Just finish the dang thing and be done!" But no, 15 minutes later I am still drawing Mexico and now my children are very hungry. So I take a break and whip up some dinner, all the while itching to beat Mexico into submission.


I eventually decided done was done and penned in the outlines with permanent marker. (Of course I did Mexico last and held my breath the whole time, hoping divine intervention would let Mexico simply flow perfectly from my fingertips. Mmmm, not so much.) But, the map is done, the countries where our troop comes from are colored in and labeled, and it's ready for some shiny star stickers to map out our past.  But I still squint and make a face at Mexico every time I walk by.

Hugs of Fiber and Fleece

When Rowan was born 7 years ago, I was overcome by so many emotions it was hard to process them all. One of the most overwhelming experiences I had as a brand new mother revolved around the sudden urge to care for all the children of the world, not just my own.  Rowan had everything she needed - loving parents, a warm home, as much milk as she wanted, and more clothes than I knew what to do with. It hit me like a ton of bricks in those first days she was home that so many of the world's children don't have those things.  So many children suffer from lack of warmth, lack of security, lack of love. As a caring person, you can be heartbroken over their plight, but I don't think it really sinks in until you are holding your own child in your arms and the thought of them in danger or suffering is almost more than you can bear.


Once I started to knit in earnest, I realized that there are only so many homemade gifts you can make for people before you run out of projects. You can either fill drawers and boxes with finished products no one will ever see, or you can knit for charity. When I first read the book, Knitting for Peace by Betty Christiansen, I felt like I could finally do my part to care for the children of the world. I've made countless sweaters, socks, and hats to be sent far and wide to different charities, and with each item sent out I can take a breath and hope that perhaps one more small life will be affected in a positive way. I will hug all those children with the tiny loops and stitches I knit for them.

"afghans for Afghans" Child's Vest - 2007

"Caps for Kids" Hats - 2007

It seems that when I am not caring for my own children, I am trying to reach out to any other children I can.  In my current roles as a Daisy Girl Scout leader and as the Service Project Coordinator for my Moms Club, I decided I wanted give many of the children in my life the first-hand experience of helping kids in need. An organization I have always wanted to get involved with is Project Linus (www.projectlinus.org), a group whose mission is to "provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer "blanketeers."  So, when fleece fabric went on sale I filled my dining room! I spent about 12 hours "prepping" the fleece for my Girl Scout troop, and last month they finished 26 blankets. With help from several mom friends, we have prepped countless more blankets to be completed next week at our Moms Club gathering.

A Daisy Hard at Work!

"Prepping" the fleece basically means we had to cut the selvage edges off and create a perfect (well, as close to it as we could!) rectangle of fabric using the specifications from Project Linus. Then each end of the blankets need to have 1" wide strips cut 4 inches deep, with a notch cut in the top of each one. The Girl Scouts and Moms Club kids simply have to take each strip, tuck it into the notch and pull through to create a fringed edge that makes the blanket look complete. 

From the moment I became Rowan's Girl Scout Leader and realized I would be helping the girls earn their light green Daisy petal: Considerate and Caring, I knew I wanted to involve them with Project Linus. The girls had so much fun creating the blankets as part of this important lesson and loved the idea they were helping an unknown child. It was hard for some of them to part with the finished blanket, but I had planned ahead! Each girl got a remnant from the fabric they had chosen to work on. On each remnant I put a label with their name and a little poem I wrote:

  Today I made a blanket for another child in need.

I’m considerate and caring, as all Daisy Scouts should be!

This little bit of extra was left when I was done

I will keep it to remember that giving can be fun!

Their eyes lit up when they learned they would get to take a little piece of the experience with them. Rowan has decided she wants to make a quilt out of the leftover fleece remnants, and has told me she wants to keep the label with the poem on it to remember.  Yeah, I'd say it's been worth it!

Finished Daisy Scout Blankets

So, hopefully all these kids in my life will have their hearts expanded just a little bit more by taking part in this project. For many of them it is hard to imagine the situations that children less fortunate than themselves face, so it is a peek into a world that we try to shelter them from. Hopefully they will come out of it feeling part of a bigger picture, knowing that their own two hands can make a difference to someone. We'll be wrapping fleece hugs around 65 children who desperately need them. One by one, we'll touch lives with love and warmth. :) And I breathe a little easier.  

Mittens, Hats, and Grape Leaves (oh my!)

My fantastical mother (and soul-sister knitter) made Brynn a beautiful sweater and hat set when she was a baby. She outgrew the sweater a year ago, but the hat still fits and looks awesome with her little green coat!  But alas, I didn't have matching mittens and we do like to be stylish and matchy-matchy with our winter accessories. So, mom procured the right yarn and after finishing a few other time sensitive projects I launched into the thumbless mitts.  Brynn's hypotonia makes her little hands hard to get into mittens, and we ignore the thumbs on her other pair anyway, so thumbless they are!  I also crocheted a chain to hold them together and string them through her sleeves - you hate to lose handmade mittens!

I am also on my 13th (14th?) infant hat for GoodGoes.org, a charity that is collecting hats this month to send worldwide.  I am using up my stash of Cotton-Ease, and the hats are nice and squishy soft and hopefully warm.  I did a few that were two-toned, but my favorites are the single color with the garter ridges for texture.

And today we are in party-prep mode!  We host an annual neighborhood Superbowl party every year, which means by tomorrow at 4 the house needs to be clean and the basement ready to accommodate too many people.  I decided this year to make some of my favorite Lebanese foods (I know, not really football food, but I don't care!) including hummus, tabbouleh, and grape leaves (or yubra arish.)  This afternoon the kitchen turned into a grape leaf rolling extravaganza, and Rowan - bless her heart - stuck it out with me as my assistant the entire afternoon.  For those who have never had grape leaves....dude.  AWESOME.  You mix ground beef, rice, and a little butter with salt, pepper, and cinnamon.  You roll a meatball sized wad of this mixture inside a grape leaf, then simmer in lemon water for 2 hours.  Like I said...DUDE.  So, so good!